I find a lot of typos in news stories, too, now that the media’s business model has been upended and they can’t afford copyeditors anymore; but this is different, these are spelling errors, not typos.
But let’s face it, it’s not only Republicans, but literacy in general that’s going downhill. Why has spelling gotten so sloppy? I can think of several possibilities: (1) Schools aren’t as demanding as they used to be, (2) today’s generations grew up with the shorthand phonetic spelling used on handheld devices, (3) people don’t read as much as they used to.
Yes, you become a good speller by reading a lot, and using a dictionary when you’re unsure. But that’s easier than ever, with the advent of online dictionaries; and writers also have computerized spellchecking, too. If there’s a squiggly redline under a word in your draft, why not check it out? Is it laziness? We’d all be better off if writers everywhere slow down, crank out less verbiage, and concentrate on quality instead of quantity.
